John Muir Writings

by John Muir

Sierra Club Bulletin
Volume XI Number 1 - January, 1920

NOTE: In his intimate
acquaintance with nature John Muir recognized and loved everything that
was natural and honest, but his interest focused upon the things which
represented the most splendid expressions of creative power. Not only did
he instinctively select for close personal companionship the elements of
nature that had most to give for him, but, as no other western naturalist
has done, he set forth their fullest meaning in the language of the people.

Of all Muir’s special
interests in nature, it is probable that none made to him a stronger appeal
than the giant Sequoias of the Sierra and Coast Range forests. It was
his firm conviction that they represented the supremest examples of majesty
among all living things, and his journey around the earth to compare the
Big Trees with the trees of the world left him with settled conviction
regarding the correctness of this view. For many years he gave himself
to the protection of these “Kings of the forest, the noblest of a noble
race.” At this time of national movement for the preservation of these
forests through the Save-the-Redwoods League, it is particularly fitting
that we present the sentiments written years ago, in support of just such
a movement, by the friend who fought so hard, so faithfully, and so long
in this good cause.
— JOHN CAMPBELL MERRIAM,
Chairman, Executive Committee of the Save-the-Redwoods League.

We are often told that the world
is going from bad to worse, sacrificing everything to mammon. But this
righteous uprising in defense of God’s trees in the midst of exciting
politics and wars is telling a different story, and every Sequoia, I fancy,
has heard the good news and is waving its branches for joy. The wrongs done
to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and
unbelief, for when light comes the heart of the people is always right.
Forty-seven years ago one of these Calaveras King Sequoias was laboriously
cut down, that the stump might be had for a dancing-floor. Another, one of
the finest in the grove, more than three hundred feet high, was skinned alive
to a height of one hundred and sixteen feet from the ground and the bark
sent to London to show how fine and big that Calaveras tree was—as sensible
a scheme as skinning our great men would be to prove their greatness. This
grand tree is of course dead, a ghastly disfigured ruin, but it still stands
erect and holds forth its majestic arms as if alive and saying, “Forgive
them; they know not what they do.” Now some millmen want to cut all the
Calaveras trees into lumber and money. But we have found a better use for
them. No doubt these trees would make good lumber after passing through a
sawmill, as George Washington after passing through the hands of a French
cook would have made good food. But both for Washington and the tree that
bears his name higher uses have been found.

Could one of these Sequoia Kings
come to town in all its godlike majesty so as to be strikingly seen and
allowed to plead its own cause, there would never again be any lack of
defenders. And the same may be said of all the other Sequoia groves and
forests of the Sierra with their companions and the noble Sequoia sempervirens, or redwood,
of the coast mountains.

In a general view we find that
the Sequoia gigantea, or Big Tree, is distributed in a widely
interrupted belt along the west flank of the Sierra, from a small grove
on the middle fork of the American River to the head of Deer Creek, a
distance of about two hundred and sixty miles, at an elevation of about
five thousand to a little over eight thousand feet above the sea. From
the American River grove to the forest on Kings River the species occurs
only in comparatively small isolated patches or groves so sparsely distributed
along the belt that three of the gaps in it are from forty to sixty miles
wide. From Kings River southward the Sequoia is not restricted to mere
groves, but extends across the broad rugged basins of the Kaweah and Tule
rivers in majestic forests a distance of nearly seventy miles, the continuity
of this portion of the belt being but slightly broken save by the deep
cañons.

In these noble groves and forests
to the southward of the Calaveras Grove the axe and saw have long been
busy, and thousands of the finest Sequoias have been felled, blasted into
manageable dimensions, and sawed into lumber by methods destructive almost
beyond belief, while fires have spread still wider and more lamentable
ruin. In the course of my explorations twenty-five years ago, I found five
sawmills located on or near the lower margin of the Sequoia belt, all of
which were cutting more or less Big Tree lumber, which looks like the redwood
of the coast, and was sold as redwood. One of the smallest of these mills
in the season of 1874 sawed two million feet of Sequoia lumber. Since that
time other mills have been built among the Sequoias, notably the large ones
on Kings River and the head of the Fresno. The destruction of these grand
trees is still going on.

On the other hand, the Calaveras
Grove for forty years has been faithfully protected by Mr. Sperry, and
with the exception of the two trees mentioned above is still in primeval
beauty. The Tuolumne and Merced groves near Yosemite, the Dinky Creek
grove, those of the General Grant National Park and the Sequoia National
Park, with several outstanding groves that are nameless on the Kings,
Kaweah, and Tule river basins, and included in the Sierra forest reservation,
have of late years been partially protected by the Federal Government;
while the well-known Mariposa Grove has long been guarded by the State.

For the thousands of acres of Sequoia
forest outside of the reservation and national parks, and in the hands
of lumbermen, no help is in sight. Probably more than three times as many
Sequoias as are contained in the whole Calaveras Grove have been cut into
lumber every year for the last twenty-six years without let or hindrance,
and with scarce a word of protest on the part of the public, while at the
first whisper of the bonding of the Calaveras Grove to lumbermen most everybody
rose in alarm. This righteous and lively indignation on the part of Californians
after the long period of deathlike apathy, in which they have witnessed the
destruction of other groves unmoved, seems strange until the rapid growth
that right public opinion has made during the last few years is considered
and the peculiar interest that attaches to the Calaveras giants. They were
the first discovered and are best known. Thousands of travelers from every
country have come to pay them tribute of admiration and praise, their reputation
is world-wide, and the names of great men have long been associated with
them—Washington, Humboldt, Torrey and Gray, Sir Joseph Hooker, and others.
These kings of the forest, the noblest of a noble race, rightly belong to
the world, but as they are in California we cannot escape responsibility as
their guardians. Fortunately the American people are equal to this trust,
or any other that may arise, as soon as they see it and understand it.

Any fool can destroy trees. They
cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever
plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal
giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest
of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and
beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through
all the eventful centuries since Christ’s time, and long before that, God
has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches,
and a thousand storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools;
this is left to the American people. The news from Washington is encouraging.
On March third [1905?] the House passed a bill providing for the Government
acquisition of the Calaveras giants. The danger these Sequoias have been
in will do good far beyond the boundaries of the Calaveras Grove, in saving
other groves and forests, and quickening interest in forest affairs in general.
While the iron of public sentiment is hot let us strike hard. In particular,
a reservation or national park of the only other species of Sequoia, the
sempervirens, or redwood,
hardly less wonderful than the gigantea, should be quickly
secured. It will have to be acquired by gift or purchase, for the Government
has sold every section of the entire redwood belt from the Oregon boundary
to below Santa Cruz.

1.
Found among Muir’s papers after his death and now
published for the first time. See editorial, page 87:

“. . . a brief
and moving plea for the saving of the Sequoias, written. . . years ago, when
the Calaveras Grove was in danger. It seems to have been almost providentially
preserved among his papers for the supreme occasion which has now arisen,. . .
It will be noted that he long ago proposed doing the very thing which is
now being attempted after a lapse of years and after thousands of acres of
the finest redwood forests have become an ugly fire-bitten ruin.
. . . We of this State cannot escape responsibility either for their
destruction or their preservation. W.F.B. [William Frederick Badè]